February 2017 – Paul's Notepad

1.5M Unpatched WordPress Sites Hacked

Paul Darr / 2017-02-13 / Leave a Comment

My wife’s blog was one of those impacted but I had a backup of the SQL, so I was able to restore the content like it was prior to it being defaced.

Lessons learned: I don’t log on to my wife’s blog enough to see it needs updates. So I just enabled automatic updates for everything on it to mitigate that in the future. The downside of that is, I won’t see if an update will fail until later but I can always restore things like I did in this case.

Positives: My backups work. It was simple and easy to do a restoration. I logged into PHPMyAdmin dropped the table for her blog and then imported my backup and all was well again. After completing the updates it was ready to go.

For us her blog is pretty important. It acts as our family journal that she writes in every Sunday and reflects on our family and children.

I’m now also looking into a plug-in that will remind me to update her site.

Article with more information on this exploit and hack.

1.5M Unpatched WordPress Sites Hacked Read Post »

Bit by the Nexus 5x bootloop

So my Nexus 5x decided to start bootlooping on me over the weekend. I tried resetting and reflashing it but I had no luck there. Today I called the Google store and luckily they are extending my warranty and exchanging my device for a refurbished one. I’m currently using my old Nexus 5 that’s over three years old. I used it for two of those years and then my wife used it for one, until I bought her a Pixel this past Christmas. So far with going back to the Nexus 5 all I miss is the better camera, fingerprint sensor unlock and slightly better battery life. On the other hand I like the Nexus 5’s size more as it fits into my pockets better and feels better when using one handed. That all combined makes me a bit jealous of my wifes Pixel as it incorporates all the good points of both those and has an even better camera and battery life. So far the extra cost seems like a good investment for her device.